The Empty Box of Everything

The Hallway

Tariq stopped dead in his tracks and placed his suitcase on the carpet. His flat stood before him and the communal lobby was well kept, but cold. The keys in his hand pointed at the door like a gun in a heist, but the pull of the trigger had been halted by the discovery of a small, cardboard box in the middle of the floor. Tariq eyed it with apprehension. His parcels were usually planted firmly against the wall. This one sat in the middle of the foyer. Exactly in the middle, as though it had seized upon the optimum point of espial. It could see all walls, doors and corners and none of the furniture had dared to stray near it. The box was deserted by all other matter and abandoned by rationale. Where it sat, a square zone of emptiness surrounded it. A realm to which it did not belong, but a realm to which it was now King. And Tariq had invaded.

Tariq Wilkes, 16C Court Road, Edinburgh, EH12 8KL

It was scribbled on a piece of A4 paper, torn in half and sellotaped generously to the top of the box, over the seal, with print faintly visible on the reverse side; his name and address. The box was over-wrapped in tape and inconsistent lashings of brown paper, which covered only the upper-half of its body, like a jar whose lid had been broken with only foil and string to protect the jam inside from prying hands. The package was addressed to Tariq, written in a scrawling handwriting that indicated either a rush, a panic, or a child. Tariq’s suitcase was filled with papers, utensils, snacks and a now empty flask. His arm ached from carrying it all day. When he picked up the package however, he felt like a rampaging kaiju plucking a building from its foundations. It was as light as the air and when it shook, it made no sound, save for the rustling and rattling of too much wrapping and tape.

Why would somebody bring me an empty box?

The Kitchen

Tariq wielded his scissors like an enraged surgeon and stabbed mercilessly into the belly of the box. One puncture was more than enough. From there he pulled the blade towards him, like the levers of a great machine and within moments he had carved through the defences of the strange, dishevelled box. With the tape all but removed, the box flapped open against the feeble tug of gravity, like a book that springs open to its most frequently consulted chapters. Nothing. It was empty. No scraps, no crumbs, no blemishes and no evidence of survival whatsoever. The innards were lifeless and gutted of all detail. On the outside, the box was the opposite. It was beaten, bruised and broken in several places, with plasters of paper applied as bandages over wounds. Yet, none of those injuries had burrowed their way into the inside of the box. It was simply pristine.

Tariq remained still for many moments. His brain was beginning to organise his investigation. So many questions, not enough solutions. Why was it that the outside of the box had seen more use than the inside? Why had anyone even bothered to patch up a visibly worn and expendable, old box? Why had it been so carefully placed the way it had been outside the flat? Who had sent it? Some answers included; erroneous postal workers, mistaken addresses and some unadulterated there-must-be-some-logical-answer-to-it-all-ery. His brain was somewhat overcome with muddled thoughts and Tariq found his mind jumping from place to place. Proposition to conclusion. Conclusion to analysis. Analysis to contradiction. Contradiction to confusion. His brains became entrapped in a web of chatter, entangled in a mess of conflictions and frustrations, but each strand of the helix led him to the same lingering, overbearing thought:

Why would somebody bring me an empty box?

The Building

The box, naked and devoured of its protective coat, sat before Tariq on the counter-top. It taunted him like an unfinishable puzzle, a code to be cracked, a riddle to solve. Its contents were empty, its body was frail, but its constitution and indiscernible purpose were overpowering Tariq’s panicked psyche with vulgar ease. Tariq was hungry, he hadn’t eaten in eons and his lunch break had afforded him only the time to snack on tidbits and biscuits. He was tired too. Since 7am he had been on his weary feet, which he had dragged for miles and miles for hours and hours. He wanted to feast. He wanted to rest. But there could be no such thing as comfort until the motives of this baffling box had been determined. Motives. Why, that was it. The minor epiphany he'd been waiting for. Tariq had become so bogged down on the details that he had failed to consider the obvious:

Why would somebody bring me an empty box?

He needed a motive. The way that this box had tortured and toyed with poor Tariq’s delicate emotions, it seemed wise to assume that whoever had sent it, meant him ill will. That was when he noticed a crucial element that so far had failed to catch his eye. There were more words hidden beneath those that listed his name and address. Words obscured intentionally. Tariq clawed at the paper like a rodent seeking shelter beneath the crust of the Earth. He struck gold.

Amy MacEwan, 16B Court Road, Edinburgh, EH12 8KL

Before making its way into Tariq’s kitchen, the box had previously been sent to Tariq’s downstairs neighbour. It was the same handwriting, the same desperate, sloppy penmanship. The same person? Or the same panic? There was more.

Bailey Thomas, 16A Court Road, Edinburgh, EH12 8KL

Another label, another neighbour. Same everything. The hysteria that had compelled the writing of these labels practically bled from the cardboard. It was contagious. A whiff in the air, a poisonous gas that contaminated the oxygen being forced rapidly into Tariq’s heaving lungs. The alarm was a virus and the plague had begun. The symptoms of it dripped down from Tariq’s nose and caused the shirt on his back to stick to his skin. The box had come from within and had already infiltrated the homes of many of his contemporaries. But it couldn’t have? What business would either the kind Bailey Thomas or the quiet Amy MacEwan have sending Tariq a box of festering despair?

Then a thought struck Tariq cold. A thought that entered his mind like an icicle skewering his spine stiff. What if it was from neither of them? What if it had come from outside instead? Sent by a stranger? A stranger with the name of everyone in the building? A stranger who could walk the halls without fault in total darkness? A stranger who knew more than they should? Then Tariq asked himself the scariest question he’d asked all day; the same question he’d been asking all night:

Why would somebody bring me an empty box?

The World

Question: What comes with every package? Answer: The package bearer. If Tariq had been the one to pick up the box from the floor, then who was the one who had placed it there? What if, the box didn’t matter? What if, the box was just the scenery for a person leading the show? What if the show was a distraction, or a lie? What if the show didn’t have a happy ending for the audience watching? What if the show was a horror? A spectacle with a deception at its heart. A heart that beat at one with the cunning operator, the creator behind the illusion, the perpetrator of the crime. The carrier of the box. The one who got inside the building. The one whom was never looked at twice. The one whom aroused no doubt or mistrust. The one with the perfect excuse, the perfect disguise, the perfect alibi.

Like the hare that woke from its greedy slumber Tariq’s mind began a frantic race, scurrying through premonitions, visions and memories and bringing his attention back to just yesterday when his buzzer had buzzed the arrival of a courier, who when questioned over the intercom, spoke only the one word:

Delivery.

Upon hearing this magic word, Tariq had pressed the button and the doors had been unlocked. He’d let him inside without further interrogation, as easy as that. Delivery. It was a password, a calming familiar, an exciting tease, the promise of a trinket, a rite of passage. Delivery. It was the one word that could get you into any building without raising suspicion. Perhaps the courier, having stormed the gates of the castle, had now begun to seize the territory. An unseen intruder. A welcomed trespasser. An alien stowed away on the ship. An attacker looming in the should-be safe shadows of home.

But why would somebody bring me an empty box?

Perhaps, the box had served its purpose and the prop no longer had a part in the play. Perhaps, the imposter had a business of their own to attend. Machinations of foul-play that relied on swift and subtle execution and perhaps, its placement at Tariq’s door made the trickery all the more convincing. A courier who wasn’t a courier. A package that wasn’t a package. A way in and a way out. A villain hiding in plain sight. What might this person be? A thief? A voyeur? A prankster? A killer? Something evil that had come with Tariq’s name and address written on its invitation.

Somebody brought me an empty box.

Then Tariq realised.

The box isn’t empty.

The Box

Tariq wanted no part in this heinous deed and rushed to his stationary for a pen. He ripped a page from a notebook and began to scribble on the back of a four-week-old shopping list. If this box were what he thought it was; a portent of doom, an aid to atrocity, a weapon of devilry, then he wanted nothing to do with it. The sooner it was out, the better. But where could he put it? It might be important. An accessory to a crime. It was evidence, it couldn’t be destroyed or disposed of. It had to be kept, maintained, watched, but not by Tariq. It was for someone else to command. This duty was not his. The box had to be taken to another. Delivered. Given to a neighbour. Somebody he could trust.

So he wrote.

Letitia Ratcliff, 16D Court Road, Edinburgh, EH12 8KL

Tariq closed the box and taped the paper inelegantly over the top to hold it shut. Letitia lived across from him, mere yards from his front door, but Tariq lacked the courage to place it too close. He left it in the middle of the foyer, right in the centre, particularly so, out of place, a magnet to her gaze, somewhere she couldn’t possibly miss it. The box was her problem now and Tariq felt expunged of the stains it had brought over his evening, and thus began anew the cycle of the empty box. It was a paradox of sorts that was all too familiar to Mr. Bailey Thomas in 16A, who one strange afternoon, two nights earlier, had found an empty box delivered to his address. A box baring the scars of previous ownership. A box that scared him for its lack of implications. A box without personality, meaning or direction. An entity so ambiguous, a vessel so hollow, that eventually, only the very worst conclusions that Mr Thomas could muster, manifested themselves onto the face of the box.

And then they were re-packaged, re-delivered and thrust upon the unfortunate Miss Amy MacEwan in 16B, who too deliberated on the receipt of a bizarre and inexplicable empty box, addressed to her personally. Whatever it might mean, the answer in due course undoubtedly took the demonic form of a fear of malpractice, suspicions of foul intent and so the box was again cast out. It was a canvas, white and perfect, to be smeared in black, to be polluted by corruption, to be painted with roaring angst and colluding scepticism. It was a box. And yet it was a thing of evil to all who opened its barren interior. An evil box that held nothing, but threatened everything and when Mrs Letitia Ratcliff found the box lurking ominously by her front door with her name written on the top in an erratic scribble, she couldn’t help but consider:

Why would somebody bring me an empty box?